


A Dream

by PumpkinPantaloons



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Bit of Fluff, Insecurity, M/M, Post-Series, Pre-Relationship, Texting, basketball nerds, bit of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-17
Updated: 2014-09-17
Packaged: 2018-02-17 17:46:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2317970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PumpkinPantaloons/pseuds/PumpkinPantaloons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kuroko's had two dreams and one nightmare, and all three were real.</p>
<p>Takes place post Winter Cup.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dream

**Author's Note:**

> Serious spoilers for the anime

Tetsuya lie on his back in bed, staring at the ceiling, unable to hear the silence of his bedroom beneath the remembered cheering from earlier in the day when Seirin won the Winter Cup. He was still shaking at the overload of sensations; arms around him, crying, laughing, and the gleam of the metal cup. Of his friends surrounding him, congratulating him and each other, all the people that had cheered them on. Kise-kun, Midorima-kun, Aomine-kun, and Momoi-san smiling with their teammates. Even Murasakibara-kun had been there, even if he was grumbling at Himuro-san the whole time.

His stomach fluttered, the small smile he didn’t know he had on his face, spreading. Ogiwara-kun had cheered him on, told him not to give up. Said he hoped he could play basketball with him again someday. Ogawara-kun, who had never blamed him for hating basketball, had never once considered it his fault. Just like Kagami-kun had said.

And Akashi-kun was back. The real one, not the Emperor. The one that had helped him find his own basketball. The Akashi that had not just congratulated him on the win, but his entire team, instantly understanding what Tetsuya had been trying to do for the Generation of Miracles all along.

He remembered Kagami’s arm slung over his shoulder, leaning against him, trusting him to keep him upright after their ace had worked so hard to help them win. So warm. Smelling like sweat, and… just… _him_. Tetsuya’s face flushed.

It was like a dream, a perfect dream. Everything he wanted.

He’d had a dream before. It had become a nightmare.

Tetsuya’s breath caught in his chest, light one moment, a heavy pressure the next.

He also remembered Akashi’s words that he’d drawn too much attention to himself, ruined his misdirection, and had stopped being an adequate shadow. He’d managed to struggle around it, found tricks to still help, but that’s all he was, wasn’t he? Little tricks and no actual talent. If he couldn’t be a shadow, Seirin wouldn’t need him anymore. As Kagami got better and better no one would need him. Kagami wouldn’t need him.

Soon he’d lose everything again.

He felt tears start to slowly trickle out of the corners of his eyes, warm as they slid down the sides of his face. He squeezed them shut, trying to shove the thoughts away, stuff them down inside, to that place that didn’t show in his expression, the place no one noticed. They’d won the Winter Cup, they were number one in Japan. That was good. He should be happy. It wasn’t a dream. It was real. The future happened later. Not now. Not now.

Tetsuya’s hands tightened into fists at his sides. He could hear the silence of his house now and he didn’t like it. He was still shaking, but it was terrible and he couldn’t stop crying.

A buzz jolted his entire body, and he realized a moment later that it was his phone. He glanced at his nightstand to see the light from the text he’d just received fading. He scrambled for it, hands shaking in the dark.

‘You still awake?’ – it was from Kagami-kun.

Tetsuya stared at it through the blur of tears, still lying on his back, holding up the tiny light. ‘Yes’ he finally typed back.

‘Yeah, can’t sleep either. Still too excited.’ There was a pause, ‘WE DID IT! WE’RE #1 IN JAPAN!!!’

Tetsuya let out a short laugh that choked on his slowing tears. The sudden sound in the empty silence startled him. ‘Yes.’

‘We were awesome.’ The text was followed quickly by another, ‘EVERYONE was awesome.’

Tetsuya let out another short laugh, clutching his phone over his heart for a couple of seconds before he responded. ‘We won with everyone’ And now his hands were shaking with something else as he sent another text ‘You were amazing.’

‘Hell yes I was!’

Tetsuya grinned, sniffling.

‘But couldn’t have been without you.’

Tetsuya’s face flushed, heart beating impossibly hard. ‘I really like you, Kagami-kun.’ His heart stopped. He hadn’t meant to type that. He hadn’t meant to send that. That was too much. Was he trying to break everything as soon as possible?

The response was almost instantaneous, ‘I’d hope so, we’re best friends.’

Tetsuya let out a slow, steady breath, trying to ignore the little stab that was disappointed that Kagami had misunderstood what he’d said, even when the larger part of him was happy that he had. He laid the phone on his chest, not sure what to say next.

The phone vibrated against his skin. ‘Wait. You didn’t mean it like that, did you’ Tetsuya clutched the phone, lips pursed in a line. What was the right thing to say? ‘Kuroko?’ He must have taken too long to respond, maybe Kagami-kun thought he’d messed up, when it was him that had.

He couldn’t breathe around the barbed lump painfully lodged in his throat. He had no idea what was the right thing to say.

But hadn’t he told Midorima that you never know what is the right path? And Midorima would tell him you do everything you can, and God does the rest. ‘No, I didn’t.’

There was a very long pause in which Tetsuya increasingly thought he may have broken some sort of record of making a mess of a good thing, and then the phone finally vibrated again in his still-shaking hands.

‘Idiot, you’re supposed to do that sort of thing in person so that I can kiss you’

Tetsuya laughed, and he could hear the rush of chaos at the end of the game again instead of his own stuttered breathing. ‘Kagami-kun, you say such embarrassing things’

‘idiot’ ‘I’ll make you lunch tomorrow and give you another chance to get it right?’

Tetsuya sniffled, laughing. ‘Yes.’

**Author's Note:**

> I feel bad making Kuroko feel bad, but I couldn't heeeelllppp it


End file.
